Foot: Morality As A System Of Hypothetical Imperatives

Ethics
21

Yes. I also like this, from the same passage:

No one thinks that if the word “falling” is used in a statement reporting one’s sensations it must be used in a special sense. But this kind of mistake may be involved in looking for the special sense in which one “has to” do what morality demands.

I’m not as sure as Foot is that there is no such special sense, but she’s absolutely right to be homing in on this question of a special sense of “has to” in ethics – that there is a question, in other words. We can frame the question in several ways, but I think we need to start by acknowledging that we don’t quite know what “ought” and “has to” mean. They have so many uses (including that looming sense of obligation Foot points to as the consequence of a certain kind of moral upbringing). What is supposed to happen to me if I fail to do what I ought? Is that a relevant consideration? Is the force of “ought” like the force of “QED”? Would that be motivationally relevant?

It looks like Foot believes we ought to give up the idea of a “special sense” entirely, just as we would for “falling.” She may be right, but I’m saying it needs a lot of thought, since “obligation” is an incomparably more difficult concept than “falling”.

22

I think that is right, but that Foot is arguing that we cannot make sense of a categorical imperative at all. If so, the enterprise collapses.

23

That might be the most important take away for the discussion.

24

If one wants to be a respectable philosopher one should
get up in the mornings and do some work … (306)

What does it mean to be a respectable philosopher and what is the work of a respectable philosopher? Nietzsche said that Kant was not a true philosopher (BGE 211), while some claim that Nietzsche was not a philosopher. Wittgenstein said: “Work on philosophy – like work in architecture in many respects – is really more [rather] work on oneself. On one’s own conception. On how one sees things. (And what one expects from them.)” (CV 24) One doing such work might never publish anything.

This leads to the question of what work in ethics looks like. What does one hope to achieve?

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25

The conclusion we should draw is that moral judgments have no better claim to be categorical imperatives than do statements about matters of etiquette.

It is important, perhaps, to note that this does not say that there are no true moral judgments. it’s more that we can’t use their being categorical imperatives to claim a special place for them. Categorical imperatives do not achieve the special authority some grant them.

26

Interesting example of a hypothetical imperative.

I note that (386) refers to the PDF p. 2. The article is Ch. XI in Foot’s book Virtues and Vices: and other essays in moral philosophy.

In full:

Sometimes what a man should do depends on his passing inclination, as when he wants his coffee hot and should warm the jug. Sometimes it depends on some long-term project, when the feelings and inclinations of the moment are irrelevant. If one wants to be a respectable philosopher one should get up in the mornings and do some work, though just at that moment when one should do it the thought of being a respectable philosopher leaves one cold. It is true nevertheless to say of one, at that moment, that one wants to be a respectable philosopher and this can be the foundation of a desire-dependent hypothetical imperative. The term “desire” as used in the original account of the hypothetical imperative was meant as a grammatically convenient substitute for “want,” and was not meant to carry any implication of inclination rather than long-term aim or project.

Note 5: To say that at that moment one wants to be a respectable philosopher would be another matter. Such a statement requires a special connection between the desire and the moment.

Do we want to be ‘respectable philosopher’? What would that mean?

Didn’t he also say:

  • Im Rennen der Philosophie gewinnt, wer am langsamsten laufen kann. Oder: der, der das Ziel zuletzt erreicht.

So disrespectfully quick of me to look for a single quote, huh? I happen to like reading quotes from Wittgenstein. A ‘real’ philosopher would read it (C&V) in context and then chew it to bits, no? Spewing out thoughts with others, strangulating on hinges.

Great questions. One should be discussing this as related to Philippa Foot’s article on our current ‘desire’. We can and must do that, but it’s also worthwhile to see the bigger picture.

‘Work in ethics’ as a philosopher, someone following medical ethics or a personal morality? In the former, it seems to be theory-based but also personal questions as to who or what can be counted as ‘bad’, immoral, or amoral. The implications or consequences of allowing harmful or helpful behaviour.

In the latter, a medic’s morality may well be in tension with medical ethics. Think abortion. Think care within systems of constraints. Think dehumanisation.
The moral core of medicine, moral authority and ethical presence - Journal of Medical Ethics blog

What better way to start a Sunday morning? Hah!

27

@Jay @Amity

I agree this is the tip of the spear; I think it tracks with my point above that “intention”, whatever that is imagined to be, is unnecessary for responsibility (to the criteria for judgment of an act).

When we say that a man should do something and intend a moral judgment we do not have to back up what we say by considerations about his interests or his desires. P. 307 (using the numbers on the PDF)

This lack of necessity to consider the personal reminds me of Wittgenstein’s claim in the Blue Book (p. 15) that reasons (usually) come after an act, and may not be forthcoming at all. “Why did you run that red light?”, maybe “I needed to get to the hospital!” though maybe just, “Oh, did I?”, or as Foot puts the matter “a man might be right if he denied that he had reason to do ‘what’s done.’” (P. 309)

Neither response, however, removes being subject to the ticket (“the rule does not fail to apply” p. 308), but one is an excuse or mitigating factor in the (subsequent) judgment, but only post hoc.

(Wittgenstein will also point out that “motives” get lumped in with “reasons”, which I think is more how Kant is picturing them, as a cause that is imagined for any action.)

Deciding what “considerations deserve… notice” (p. 309) is attempting to judge what is important ahead of time, what is worth being thought of as “moral” at all, the highest-regarded being that which provides “reason-giving force”. If we (all of us) “must” do what is right, then we need have no concern about our own judgment, our reasons, our mistakes, our culpability.

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28

Yes, this is what Foot is saying.

Good. Kant doesn’t spend much time with the question of non-rational motives, since he assumes these can only be heteronomous. I think he’d acknowledge that we can have motives, perhaps emotional ones, that cause our actions, without those motives taking the form of “Here’s my reason for doing X,” but such motives aren’t of ethical concern to Kant.

The more interesting question is whether “the good will” has to have the form of a reason that says, “I do X because is the right thing to do.” This is a kind of translation of the categorical imperative, and Foot is rightly calling it out for scrutiny.

29

Like the collection called Zettel, which means slips of paper, the original context is often absent. He frequently rearranged these cut out slips.

I suspect that for Foot it meant working within the analytic tradition, but this often meant working against prevailing attitudes and views. Here

is a good place to get a better sense of this.

30

I would think etiquette is limited to hypothetical imperatives, insofar as the formulation of these satisfies a subjective want, contingent on how it makes the subject feel because of the action he takes.

But that is not and never was the object of moral philosophy proper, in that the actions of a group is always conditioned by the actions of individuals in it, which makes explicit the distinction in ethical behavior of the subject in juxtaposition to his fellows, and the moral volition of the subject himself without any regard for anything other than his own rational disposition, whatever it may be.

Foot is right enough in supposing the construction of a philosophy predicated on hypothetical imperatives, but to describe it as a possible moral philosophy methinks ‘tis a bridge too far.
———————

Foot: “….The desires on which a hypothetical imperative is dependent may be those of one man, or may be taken for granted as belonging to a number of people, engaged in some common project or sharing common aims….”

Insofar as this is true enough, it presupposes that which is possibly common to every man, and simultaneously inquires as to what form that commonality can possibly have, not across cultures and communities, but across ages.

So historical precedent informs that as yet not every human will ever agree on any one particular thing, so if there is a manifest commonality in humans in general, it must be in the form of a preferred condition each and every one of them desires for himself. And if such apodeitic commonality is conceivable, then the deduction of a moral necessity follows from it as a matter of course.

Now the fun part: any one can perform an act he himself considers to be a good act, but feel no pleasure for having done it. That very same person, at necessarily a different time, can feel altogether comfortable with himself having performed an act he already knows is not good.

If every single human ever is subject to this rational dichotomy, what possible commonality can there be for them all. It is clear happiness itself is not sufficient to satisfy the requirement, for it is proved a subject in his moral action is not necessarily happy for it.

Kant set the stage for pure moral philosophy with the notion that failing the effects of happiness in and of itself, it may be then the worthiness for being happy, which satisfies the criterion of that for which every human seeks for himself, and it is the categorical imperative alone, in its “shall” relation to moral interests, by which the worthiness for being happy is determinable.

That poor schmuck feeling down for having done something he knows is painful for somebody else, still can consider himself a properly moral subject for having conformed to his own moral principle.

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The behavior is required, not simply recommended, but the question remains as to why we should do what we are required to do. (P. 310]

My memory of Kant is fuzzy, but isn’t part of it that the “requirement” is IF you want to be considered to be “rational” and part of the realm of ends, so it isn’t just about a standard of reasoning, but also a judgment of one’s place, as if one’s character (which also seems to imply the desire to avoid being shamed of lesser reasoning)—that you would be (or not be) in a certain category (or person). Then the “binding force”, and feeling “unable to escape”, is from our judgment (society’s) in anticipation, after, not some internal PTSD beforehand. The teaching is: act from this kind of reason to be one of us.

Actions that are truly moral must be done “for their own sake,” “because they are right,” and not for some ulterior purpose… a truly moral man acts “out of respect for the moral law” (p. 312)

And so, here, we are not (just) looking at the reasoning, but judging WHO is “a truly moral [person]” (as one would be deemed “rude” in not following etiquette).

If we accept that we are judging the person by the reasoning, the question isn’t just what the standard is, but how are we even able to (see into the heart of a person)? I would speculate that the wish to have that knowledge is an impossible standard where only Kant’s reasoning survives, such as, say, only the cases like “charitable actions do not happen to further the good of others.” (P.314)

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32

So one follows the decrees of etiquette in order to feel better?

I don’t see that answering an invitation in the third person does any such thing.

So…?

33

It will be said that this way of viewing moral considerations must be totally destructive of morality…

p.8, or p.312.

Part of the appeal of the categorical imperative is a sort of holism summed up by Foot in that paragraph. The whole of ethics is, in this account, dependent on the rational acceptance of the categorical imperative, and anything else is not Ethics, proper.

The view is that no one could ever act morally unless they accepted such considerations as in themselves sufficient reason for action.

This holism will go towards much of the resistance one might anticipate - roughly, the accusation that Foot entirely misses what ethics is; and so is mistaken from the start; she misses the intuition that moral considerations are a very different sort of thing to other considerations. Ethics is about the escape from self-interest.

Foot has her own response; roughly, that the escape from self-interest is about what we care for.

34

Thank you. Knowing context and circumstance helps gain understanding:

It contains several discussions of philosophical psychology and of the tendency in philosophy to try for a synoptic view of phenomena.[1] It analyzes sense, meaning, thinking while speaking, behavior, pretense, imagination, infinity, rule following, imagery, memory, negation, contradiction, calculation, mathematical proof, epistemology, doubt, consciousness, mental states, and sensations.[1]

from: Zettel (Wittgenstein book) - Wikipedia

Indeed, it is an informative article, giving context. Among other things, it shows the effects of WWII on how Foot and the others progressed their ideas in moral philosophy.

The realities of Foot and Murdoch sharing a London flat. When they would walk out after a night’s bombing through streets unrecognizable in the rubble and devastation.

The quartet were able to ‘fight’ against prevailing male views at the university. A bittersweet freedom granted because most male students had to take on a more desperate fight against the enemy. Perhaps they would have expressed their voices in any case…

Time, place, and views: Foot is never static but is willing to listen, learn, and develop.

Finally:

Foot’s achievement consisted in pointing us in a better direction. Instead of looking to logic or language for answers, she suggested that we look to ‘the reality that surrounds man’. Human nature is a complex thing, and understanding it will take all the resources of the sciences – natural and social – as well as history. But the significance of those enquiries will lie ultimately in what they can say about the kinds of lives that might be good for us. And to know that, we must ask: who are we? What do we need – for ourselves, and from each other? And what must we be like to get it? — How Philippa Foot set her mind against prevailing moral philosophy | Aeon Essays

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35

Isn’t this more about the difference in style and attitude in ‘doing’ philosophy?

From the Aeon article:

With the young men away, there was no one to sustain the compulsive ‘argy-bargy’ – to use the term popular in the 1930s – of the inter-war decades. As Midgley put it in a letter to The Guardian in 2013:

[I]n those wartime classes – which were small – men (conscientious objectors etc) were present as well as women but they weren’t keen on arguing. It was clear that we were all more interested in understanding this deeply puzzling world than in putting each other down.

Foot was sent for tutorials in philosophy to a young man called Donald MacKinnon. Even by Oxford’s demanding standards, MacKinnon was an odd man. He would lie on the floor and beat the walls, brandishing a poker and attacking the fireplace. He was given to painfully long, reflective silences, when it was simply unclear if he could hear what was said to him. But once his terrified students discovered that neither he nor they would come to any serious harm, they would find themselves in the middle of the most exhilarating conversations they had ever had.

Conversations with MacKinnon were wide-ranging, open-ended and intense. There was no attempt to shut up anyone by declaring their claims nonsensical or meaningless. The philosophers of the late 1930s, still reeling from the publication of A J ‘Freddie’ Ayer’s Language, Truth and Logic (1936), had been much given to that sort of thing.

Narrow, dogmatic, and dismissive argumentation versus open-ended, considered reflection?

Both can be read and appreciated in their own ways. We can ask why some prefer one to the other…

This style of brazen dismissiveness was alien to MacKinnon, and his attitude rubbed off on his students. In later years, Foot would say that what MacKinnon had taught her was virtue.

36

Yes, she’s quite right, that interpretation of Kant is wobbly at best.

What she misses, in my view, is a deep understanding of what Kant says ethics is. You have to take Kant absolutely seriously, and at face value, when he says, “There is nothing it is possible to think of anywhere in the world, or indeed anything at all outside it, that can be held to be good without limitation, excepting only a good will”. This means that, when we try to understand ethics, what we’re trying to understand is how what’s going on inside me makes all the difference in what counts as doing the right thing. That is similar to, but not the same as, “the escape from self-interest.” I think Kant’s conception is more radical than that, but that can wait until you lay out the subsequent pages from Foot.

37

I wouldn’t be so quick to tribute this to Foot. She is perhaps not addressing Kant, so much as the version of Kant popular amongst the cognisant of 1950’s English philosophy. That is, the paper is directed at those who would have been reading it.

That. it seems to me, is exactly what she is saying about Kant over the next few paragraphs, the few pages after p.8 (p.312).

38

That’s a good point. My understanding of Kant, such as it is, is coming more from philosophers like Richard J. Bernstein and, I suppose, Habermas – interpreters whose background, while “mainstream,” would have included people like Gadamer and Husserl who probably weren’t too well known in the UK then.

Good, I look forward to following along with your exegesis.

39

Then I hope I am up tot the task!

So is Kant saying that in the case of categorical imperatives, our reasons for acting and the imperative concerned are the very same? Seems so.

Is there anything to be said for the thesis that a truly moral man acts “out of respect for the moral law” or that he does what is morally right because it is morally right? That such propositions are not prima facie absurd depends on the fact that moral judgment concerns itself with a man’s reasons for acting as well as with what he does.

And then a few paragraph describing Kant’s account as being that we either act out of self interest or we act according to the moral law/categorical imperative/for the act’s own sake, which are equivalent. The binary that serves to cleve doing what one wants from doing what is right.

I’ll rest there, because she is about to move on to considering virtues.

40

Her response to Kant on 312-13 is strong. Because he insists on making “happiness” the name of one his basic categories of motivational goals, Kant certainly makes himself look like what Foot calls “a psychological hedonist.” The passage she quotes from the 2nd Critique looks absurd, as a result: Kant wants to file “all material practical principles” under the heading of “self-love or one’s own happiness”!

So . . . let’s assume first that this point is not too recondite to have been lost on Kant – a rather bright fellow! – and see if a charitable interpretation can be found. Perhaps “happiness” is here being used, like so many of Kant’s favorite words, as a technical term with a meaning that ends up being far removed – too far, I’d say – from its ordinary usage. This is a persistent irritant in Kant’s writing style; perhaps it’s less egregious in German.

Here’s what I think Kant means to say. Yes, charity is a virtue – a “material practical principle” – and the person who wishes to be good to others out of a principle of charity is no doubt an admirable character, very far removed from ordinary “self-love.” But charity is a principle (or perhaps an attitude or a concept), not the name of a single action that can be formed into a maxim for the categorical imperative. To say, “I did this out of charity” is still not to say that it was therefore necessarily the right thing to do. That would depend. It’s too broad. You can’t usefully ask yourself, “Could I will that ‘being charitable’ was a maxim for all?” because of course you can, and it tells you exactly nothing about what to do. The cat imp is not supposed to be a device to identify and celebrate the virtues. It identifies actions, and gives us an opportunity to have a certain attitude – the good will – about those actions.

I believe Kant was acutely aware that ethical decisions are specific, particular, and always open to the possibility of a conflict of virtues or principles. And the unfortunate name he’s chosen for what we’re looking for when we try to sort out these virtuous desires is . . . “happiness.” Why? Because, as Foot notes, what they all have in common is that they are self-chosen. We believe, let’s say, that being kind is a good thing to be, and so we try to identify kind actions to perform. That’s fine as far as it goes, but we are still trying to please ourselves in the sense of satisfying ourselves or justifying ourselves. If we could do that, we would be “happy,” on Kant’s idiosyncratic use of the term. I think “satisfied” is more accurate and easer to understand, while still capturing the “pleasing oneself” aspect Kant wants to bring out.

In any case, Kant says that this won’t be any help when it comes to a motivation for ethical decision. The decision is not, “Should I be kind?” or even “Is X the kind thing to do here?” What we have to decide is whether X, under these circumstances, is the right choice. And he thinks we need the formal structure of the cat imp to do that. I believe he’s largely right about the structure, though wrong about what he imagines the force of a cat imp to be.

OK, I have to stop here for now and I’m frankly not sure if all this hangs together as a Kantian reading, though I think it does. But see what you think. We still have to consider what a good will would be – something more, let’s hope, than simply “doing things because they are right,” which Foot is deservedly skeptical about.

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